


H is for Hurricane

by DoubleBit



Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: Cheating, Drug Use, Insensitive references to mental illness, M/M, MessyCon, Relapses, Sex while under the influence of heroin, Shitty Manipulative Behavior, trans!pickles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 06:42:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13653576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoubleBit/pseuds/DoubleBit
Summary: Magnus invites Pickles over to wait out the storm, and things don't go as planned.





	H is for Hurricane

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading!

“I picked up something special for you.”

Pickles freezes. Some moments happen more than once, and this is one of those. You lose your way in the woods in Bradley Park, and both times come across the same dead tree – broken off about forty feet up, scarred by lightning and pocked with woodpecker holes. You find a quarter on the ground in the Los Angeles Bus Station, and four years later, another winking brightly up at you from the pavement outside Miami International. A man who you've taken to be your friend kisses you and tells you he's picked up something special.

“Yeah?” Pickles asks. This time – like last time – he feels his guts thicken with anticipation. There's only ever been one thing worth calling “special,” and Pickles has been dreaming about it since the early hours of February 21st, 1993.

“You should see the way your eyes just lit up,” Magnus says, grinning with self-satisfaction. “I guess there's some circuits that even three stints in rehab can't break.”

_Translation: I know how many times you've been to treatment, because the whole world read about it in the tabloids. I know more about you than you will ever know about me._

_Translation: You're a junkie and you always will be._

_Translation: I'm not responsible for anything that's about to happen, but I look forward to it._

It's taken Pickles well over a year to begin to understand Magnus in this way, and that understanding entails a certain dose of isolation and paranoia. On some deeper, murkier level, Pickles knows that spending time with Magnus means spending time with a facet of himself that tends to end up locked in the bathroom with the lights out, pressing his face against the floor tiles just to soothe himself with something cold and hard and calm. (A fight with his brother; Seth's fists in his hair; the smooth press of ice against his bloodied cheek. _Do ya give up?_ Seth asked when Pickles closed his eyes. _Bro?_ ) And Tony – when he persuaded Pickles to _just open the door, babe. I promise I won't turn on the lights_ – at least showed some interest in repairing the damage he caused. After all, he'd only ever wanted to _share,_ to _show_ you, just _try_ it, and _if you don't like it, we'll never do it again._ But Mags wants to turn you inside out, to get a better look at all the parts that make you stop and start, and if you're not careful, he might stick his hand in there and move some things around.

“Ya got me,” Pickles says with a smirk and a shrug. “I'll probably hate your guts tomorrow.”

Mags peers past Pickles' shoulder at the lime-green Kawasaki chained to the row of mailboxes that run along the curb. “Jesus – you rode your fuckin’ _bike_ over here? You're lucky you didn't blow away.”

“You said to get my ass over here before the storm hits. I said, 'You wanna come get me?' an' _you_ said no way in hell were you goin' out on the roads in weather like this, cuz you're like, a fuckin' little old lady, dood. I mean, 'dja want me to ride the _bus_ or somethin'?” Pickles gathers his dreads in both hands and twists them to wring a small puddle onto the floor just inside Magnus' apartment. He delights in his host's irritated grimace, then says, “I've never fuckin' seen anything _like_ this before.” He turns to watch the rain, slanting down in heavy sheets. The branches of the sycamore across the street flail in panicked forms, and the whole neighborhood – usually noisy with dogs and cars and raised voices – has fallen into an eerie stillness, its windows shuttered beneath a gray-blue sky. It can't be much past noon, Pickles realizes with awe. The whole scene is beautiful and frightening and metal as fuck. He remembers the thrill he felt as a child during midsummer thunderstorms, and wonders what Nathan is doing right now, and if he feels this too.

“This is your first hurricane,” Magnus observes. He slips a hand up Pickles' shirt, warm fingers coming to rest on the small of Pickles' back.

“That's why you invited me over,” says Pickles, and he hopes that Magnus doesn't hear: _That's why you invited **me** over, and not Will._ Murderface has already weathered a handful of storms – as a boy in East Texas, and more recently here in Tallahassee – and Magnus loves watching people out of their element, so it's obvious which if them he's going to call for his Hurricane Opal Fuck. Pickles avoids dwelling on the triangle he's trapped in, and refuses to acknowledge the single degree of sexual separation between Murderface and himself, given that Will is a masochist and a closet-case and an all-around repulsive sack of shit with whom Pickles would rather concede no common ancestry, let alone any common desire. He kisses Magnus on the mouth and shoves the thought away, while Magnus reaches around him to close the front door.

“You afraid all the neighbors'll see what a total fuckin' _deviant_ y'are?” he asks, combing his fingertips through the rough hair of Mags' goatee, and he knows he's treading on thin ice with stuff like that, but Magnus smiles and says,

“Me? Nah – I just don’t want to end up as a cameo on your episode of _Where Are They Now._ Come in and put some dry clothes on.”

Pickles frowns – if only for a second – at Magnus’ incisive humor. _Well, ya gotta **go** somewhere for people to wonder where ya **are,**_ he’d say, if he was in the mood for losing a big fucking screaming match – maybe a night other than tonight. He considers Magnus his equal – sometimes even finds him a little _sublime,_ when the guy’s on one of his unmedicated creative streaks – but Pickles’ bygone fame casts a shadow that neither of them intends to address just now. 

“That’s funny, ‘cause I can’t _wait_ to be a witness on whatever fuckin’ serial-killer documentary they end up making about _your_ twisted ass,” he counters instead, his gaze moving past Magnus and into the living room, where he spots the _box_ – small and red, sitting on the coffee table. It’s not unlike the one Pickles’ mother uses to keep her necklaces and earrings in order. But Pickles knows that this is a different kind of box. He eyes it as he kicks off his sneakers, steadies himself on the back of the sofa to bend down and peel the damp socks off his feet.

“Make sure you tell them how much you liked fucking me,” Magnus says, and then notices the focus of Pickles’ attention. “First things first –” he instructs, “Go get changed,” and gives the drummer an affectionate smack on the ass.

Pickles pads barefoot through the apartment, which has accumulated a bit of clutter since his last visit – it’s nothing alarming, necessarily – old take-out boxes, a pyramid of empty tall-boys, a jumble of newspapers and torn-open junk mail - but its appearance portends something on Magnus’ mental horizon, and Pickles takes note. And then there’s the usual crap – a stack of amps and heads, a pair of keyboards and a tangled pile of aux and patch cords that occupies half the living room, where Magnus keeps the blinds and the shades drawn tightly shut at all hours. In the bedroom, a king-sized mattress takes up most of the floor, and the closet houses a towering collection of bootleg VHS tapes, identified and arranged only by some sort of code or serial number – Mags' own private Dewey Decimal System – which Pickles has been unable to crack. Consequently, Magnus keeps his clothes in a line of milk-crates on the floor beside the bed. Pickles crouches to paw through them, knowing he left a shirt here last month, and a pair of jeans that Magnus had stripped off him and thrown in the wash one night when Pickles pissed himself, passed out on Mags' sofa, and he remembers waking up to find Magnus sliding his pants down around his thighs, long fingers against the wet crotch of his underwear, tugging them aside to slide into his cunt – but just barely.

He pulls on the laundered jeans and the shirt, and discards his soggy clothes into a corner. It strikes him as strange – leaving things in Mags' apartment, knowing that they'll be there next time he comes around. Not a move towards domesticity so much as resignation. Murderface spends more nights at Magnus' place than he does at the shitstained efficiency he rents down on Orange Ave., but Pickles has yet to come across a single one of Will's belongings here – not a toothbrush, or a sock, or a crumpled can of Skoal. As always, the bedside wastebasket has been recently emptied, the sheets changed out, Mags' hair still damp from the shower. 

Pickles hears Magnus in the kitchen, the fairy clinking sound of ice cubes in a tall glass.

“Doesn't it bug Will that ya let me leave my shit here?” Pickles takes a long drink of whiskey and steals another glance at the box on the coffee table. His palms feel sweaty.

“Probably,” Magnus replies. He refills Pickles' glass. “Does it bother _you?_ ”

Pickles considers, and dribbles whiskey down the front of his t-shirt. He brings the fabric up to his mouth to suck it clean. It's the kind of habit he knows Magnus finds both endearing and gross. “Nah,” he says. “I don't really care.”

“What if I told you that I let you leave your shit here _because_ it bothers him?”

“I'd say that's pretty transparent of you.”

Magnus laughs. He tips the rim of his pint glass towards Pickles, and makes a toast To Transparency while Pickles’ chest swells with something like pride. He knows he’s not clever – never _had_ to be – but the amusement that plays out in Mags’ dark eyes gives Pickles just a hint of the rush he used to feel, back whenever some journalist described him as _Charming,_ or _Captivating,_ back when he was _Entertaining._

“You’re something else,” Magnus said to him once, out of nowhere, on a sticky day when they were high and camped out in front of a swamp cooler.

Pickles put his bare feet up on Mags’ lap. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. Just different from how I thought you’d be.”

“Better or worse?”

Magnus traced a fingernail along Pickles’ right arch, and Pickles squirmed. “Better,” he said, then looked at Pickles gravely and added, “You know I’m like, a total monster, right?” Pickles laughed – because people said stupid shit like that all the time in LA – and Magnus scowled at him and pushed his feet away. “I’m being fucking _serious._ ”

Pickles rolled his eyes. “Well shit, dood – I better get outta here, ‘cause it’s like, strictly against my morals to hang out with total pieces of shit,” he said, and plopped his legs right back across Magnus’ lap.

That was the first time he made Magnus laugh.

“‘Dja know I’ve made you laugh nine times since we met?” Pickles feels a numbness in his lips, the first kiss of alcohol.

Magnus blinks at him. “What?”

“Yeah.” Pickles looks up at the ceiling as he makes his tally. “That time during the heat wave. At that Cuban place on Forrest. That one time we almost got arrested. On the phone once. At that gig in Pensacola. That one time we actually _got_ arrested. In the back yard at Darlene's house. Two months ago in your car. An' then just now. That's nine times.”

Magnus’ expression takes on an almost wounded quality, and Pickles realizes too late that he’s reminded the guy once again that he’s not exactly easy-going, regular-old-pallin’-around material, not exactly… ya know, _normal_ ; but it passes as quickly as a thought – “I wouldn't want to spoil you,” says Magnus – and suddenly he’s there, filling the whole space between them, wiry arms enfolding Pickles, strong and dark like one of those fucking pythons somebody set loose in the ‘Glades, and now they’re just _out_ there, waiting for you to fall out of your boat. Mags isn’t a big dude, necessarily, until you get right up close like that, and then it’s okay to feel small, to feel maybe just a little bit _frightened._ Pickles once overheard a girl at their merch booth refer to Magnus as a creep, but really, that’s only if you aren’t prepared to feel this way, which happens to be the way Pickles likes to feel sometimes. Like, why even bother jumping out of a plane, if there’s not a small statistical chance that your parachute won’t open? Magnus brings a hand to Pickles’ jaw, presses his mouth against Pickles’ tingling lips, and Pickles gives a small hum.

“So, ya wanna introduce me to whatever’s in that little red box?” Pickles asks after a moment.

“I would’ve thought you’d need no introduction.”

Pickles stumbles backward into the living room, pulling Magnus along by the open front of his shirt. “Has anybody ever told you that you still talk like a rich kid?”

“Nope.” Magnus gives Pickles a shove that sends him down hard onto the sofa. “We can play ‘Rich Kid and Rent Boy’ some other night, yeah?”

Pickles intends to say something snotty, but when Magnus sinks down beside him and opens up the box on the table, everything between them kind of sloughs away and now there’s nothing but this _one_ thing, and Pickles can only manage a strained, “Okee.”

Magnus grins, brushes his hair back over his shoulders. “How long has it been for you?” he asks, laying out the rigs on the coffee table glass with long, deft fingers.

“Six years,” Pickles tells him. _Don’t think of Tony,_ he tells himself, and as soon as he thinks it, he knows that he’s fucked.

“Six years _and?_ ”

“Six years, seven months, two days an’ probably about thirteen hours.”

Outside, Pickles hears the racket of a trashcan blowing down the street. He draws a deep, uneven breath. This is a thing – one of _two_ things – that he’s promised himself he’ll never do again; that was how he’d justified leaving Los Angeles. _(Translation: That was how he’d justified leaving **Tony.** That if he could just keep this promise to himself, then it was _okay_ to skip town while Tony puked his guts out in some free clinic, and it was **okay** to never say goodbye, or answer the phone, or tell another living soul that **actually, I was in fuckin’ love with the guy.)**_

Magnus interrupts his thoughts, takes a gentle hold on his wrist to turn Pickles’ palm up towards the ceiling, and Pickles remembers the way Tony did the same thing, except his arms were skinnier then, and had more freckles, and when Tony pressed a thumb to the soft flesh on the inside of his elbow, he mumbled something like, “Damn – fuckin’ flawless.” Now there’s some scars – faded track marks and a few other things, and Magnus knows better than to comment on these.

“You comin’ with me?” Pickles asks.

“Yeah, of course.”

Magnus ties him off with a cam-strap – not such a sharp bite to it as the stamped leather belt that had been their go-to, until Tony left it in a hotel room in Osaka, and Pickles absolutely lost his _shit,_ aware of how ridiculous and pathetic he was, even as he continued to shout that this was “typical! Just fuckin’ like you to lose _my_ fuckin’ belt, like – you don’t even fuckin’ _care._ Like, do you even fuckin’ _understand_ what it meant to me?” and shaking Tony off while Tony pleaded with him: “I’m sorry, babe – I’ll call the hotel tomorrow, okay? And if they can’t find it, I’ll buy you another one, okay? Jesus, babe, you’re fuckin’ _scarin’_ me right now. You want something to calm down?”

“So, uh – where’d you get it from?” Pickles asks.

Magnus smirks at him and gives a little “tsk” as he cinches down lightly on the strap. “Like I’m going to tell _you,_ ” he says. “Squeeze my hand.”

Pickles wonders if this is Mags looking out for him, or just Mags looking out for the _band,_ and by extension his own ass. “Ya think I can’t find out on my own?” he says, but truthfully, this sort of… _relationship_ has always been the heart of his addiction – someone _else_ making all the bad choices _for_ you, another set of hands conducting your downfall, another man’s voice telling you it’s all fine, you’re doing so good, you’ll feel so good, God you feel so fucking _good._

At the cold sting of an alcohol wipe, Pickles shuts his eyes and turns his head away.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, dood – can you just like, _go_ already?” He grips Magnus’ hand tightly.

“Someone used to do this for you.” Magnus sounds surprised for a second, then shakes his head. “Fuckin’ princess.”

Pickles hisses at the pinch of the needle, and then he’s warm all over.

 

*

 

The fire near Santa Barbara had cast a red glaze over the sun, and outside the window of their tiny Westlake apartment, Los Angeles glinted with a fearsome bloody brightness. The city had issued an air-quality advisory, warning its residents to remain indoors, and the whole valley smelled like burning manzanita.

“God, dude – I wish you could see yourself right now. You look like a fuckin’ _angel._ ”

Pickles laughed. “Maybe I am,” he said, and the words seemed to seep out of his mouth, slow and viscous. He had never felt so warm, and he tried to recollect the sensation of snow falling on his face, frost coating the inside of his bedroom window in Tomahawk, the sharpness of a winter wind, but it was like trying to remember an old dream – vivid when you first wake up, dimmer each time you recall it.

He didn’t protest when Tony climbed on top of him, lifted his shirt over his head. _Dood, don’t fuck with my binding,_ he almost said, but Tony knew that already, and passed his hands over the wrap without comment.

“So, is it like how you thought it’d be?” he asked.

Pickles smiled, let his head fall back against the sofa as he combed his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know. Better.”

Tony kissed him, then pressed their foreheads together to whisper, “That’s what I was afraid if.”

“Afraid of what?” Pickles squinted up at him, traced the thin line of Tony’s lips with his thumb.

“I dunno – could you just like, promise me you won’t ever do this without me?”

“It’s fucked up to get me strung out like this an’ then make me make promises.”

Tony looked down, guilty. “I know. I just, like don’t want –” he began, but Pickles cut him off, raised one hand and put the other over his heart.

“Okay okay okay – I do solemnly fuckin’ swear on my honor to never do heroin with anyone besides Tony Thunderbottom, an’ to never tell anyone what a possessive and paranoid little bitch he is. Amen.”

Tony grinned at him – a gap-toothed expression that read as affectionate and slightly unhinged, which (in retrospect) was precisely what Tony _was,_ where Pickles was concerned. “On your _honor,_ huh?”

It was as though everything unessential had evaporated, leaving only the sensation of Tony’s mouth, kissing the crook of his arm where a drop of blood had beaded up. Then on his throat, his stomach, the soft skin of his hips, and Pickles sank lower and lower into the cushions, his fingers tangled lightly in Tony’s greasy hair. He knew what was coming next – he normally squirmed a little when Tony’s fingers slipped inside him, but now they seemed to fill him as easily as a breath, and Pickles let his legs fall open. He didn’t even lift his head when Tony pulled his shorts all the way off, took a moment to register that Tony’s _tongue_ had replaced his fingers, and _fuck,_ he had never _wanted_ that before.

_Dood,_ he would’ve said. _Gross. Just **fuck** me already._

But what came out was more like, “ _Oh. Tony._ Holy _shit._ ”

 

*

 

At this, Magnus grunts – a startled sound, muffled by Pickles’ bush – and lifts his head to get a better look at Pickles’ face. Pickles – who doesn’t seem to have heard himself – opens one eye and smiles.

“Why’d you stop?” he asks.

Magnus prefers to think of himself as too intelligent to take offense to even the most offensive things, and he knows – (and perhaps this is the crux of the problem) – that his arrangement with Pickles allows no reason for either of them to feel as betrayed as he feels the instant he hears that _name_ come out in such a careless and sensuous sigh.

“Is _that_ who you think I am?” he snaps, and even in his anger, Mags can’t help but favorably compare the even rosiness of Pickles’ face and chest to Will’s mottled, almost _purple_ blushing.

Pickles props himself up on his elbows, confusion evident in his expression as he labors to string together the question: “Is… is _who_ I think you… are?”

Magnus stares down at Pickles’ wet cunt and considers its acrid aftertaste. He ought to just keep going; the little idiot can’t even _hear_ himself, and Magnus knows better than to take anything that comes out Pickles’ mouth so seriously. Still, it infuriates him.

“ _Tony._ You called me fuckin’ _Tony._ ”

Pickles makes this _face,_ like he’s going to be ill, but composes himself more quickly than Magnus would like. “Shit, dood – like ya never called _me_ names before.” One of his hands slithers down to toy with his clit. “Please don’t let that ruin everything right now… Mags?”

Even as Magnus rebukes himself for his vanity, a tide of fear rises to overtake him. _It was **complicated,**_ was what Pickles had told him, unprompted. _It was fucking **obvious,**_ Magnus had replied scornfully. And it _was,_ if you watched any of the footage from the Australian leg of the ’92 _Choke On It_ tour, and in particular the two nights that Snakes n’ Barrels headlined at the Enmore. There’d been a stabbing during the first show, almost entirely eclipsed in the press by the kiss Pickles and Tony shared on the second night where the third verse of “Sweet Hell” should’ve been.

Magnus had seen that, of course – clips of it replayed endlessly on MTV the following week – but what caught his attention wasn’t so much the _kiss_ as it was the absolutely _smitten_ expression on Tony’s face, the way that Tony’s glassy eyes followed Pickles afterward, just as the camera cut away to track the singer across the stage.

“Sometimes when I’m onstage, I just feel like – just this total _high,_ ” Pickles had said in an interview. “Ya know, like, you’ve got all this _love_ from the audience, just like, coming _at_ you, like a fuckin’ tsunami, an’ you just have to, ya know, like – _share_ it with someone. I mean, there’s nothing like, _faggy_ about it. An’ at least I know if I kiss _Tony,_ I’m not gettin’ – ya know – fuckin’ _arrested_ at the end of the night.” He smirked. “At least, not in Sydney.”

Tony, in a separate interview, had responded with his usual diffidence, ashing his cigarette and replying with a shrug that, “It’s Pickles. He does whatever he wants.”

Eighteen months later, a photo of the incident ran on the cover of the _Enquirer,_ paired with the headline: “And now comes the break-up: SnB heads to court amidst accusations of addiction, assault  & royalties owed.”

So maybe it was _complicated._ But from Magnus’ perspective, it looks pretty simple: Pickles loved Tony, Tony loved Pickles, and Pickles threw Tony to the fucking wolves. And however much Pickles swears up and down that all he cares about is Dethklok, Magnus knows that all he _really_ cares about – all he ever _has_ cared about – is his own skin, his own fix, his own cut. Magnus is nothing _like_ Tony – too volatile, too manipulative, too driven – to ever fill whatever hole Tony managed to carve out for himself in the darkness of Pickles’ hard little heart; yet he’s not too proud to notice the similarities, and in particular:

Once upon a time, Pickles found Tony Thunderbottom playing a five-dollar show in a shitty bar in LA, and that was the spark of a creative collaboration that Tony – in a moment of rare self-reflection – described as “The only time I ever connected with another person, really.”

Ten years later, Tony’s a total recluse (rumor has it he’s given up music entirely), and Pickles bounces into a dive in downtown Tampa to watch a four-song set by Magnus’ band, Gore Salon. “I’m not really looking for a side-gig,” Magnus tells him when Pickles asks if he’d like to start a band. Pickles smiles, takes a prim sip of his mojito and says, “I’m not really _talking_ about a side-gig.”

“Magnus?” Pickles frowns up at him from the sofa, gives a gentle tug on Magnus’ pant leg. Magnus doesn’t remember coming to his feet. “Dood, come on – I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean anything by that, just – I was maybe thinking about something else. I wasn’t thinking at all about Tony, okay? Just like, kind of forgot when I was, ya know? That ever happen to you? Mags?”

Whatever album Magnus had loaded into the stereo has reached its end, and the ghastly howling of the wind swells up to take its place. A car alarm shrieks. The apartment’s grown darker, and the lamp in the corner begins to flicker, lighting the room brighter and dimmer by fits, and Magnus presses a hand to his forehead. The pile of cords and keyboards seems to shift and pulse like some living thing.

“You have to go,” says Magnus, grinding at one eyebrow with the heel of his palm. “Fuck, dude – just get out.”

Pickles sits up on his elbows, his pants still hanging open, shirt bunched up around his chest. He drags his fingers through his dreads and gives Magnus a look that’s equal parts derision and distress. “Dood - _what?_ It was a _mistake,_ okay? Are ya – are ya really gonna get that fuckin’ butt-hurt about it? Fuckin’ – invite me over here, shoot me up, an’ then kick my ass out in the middle of a fuckin’ _hurricane?_ ”

Pickles leans forward and reaches for him, but Magnus recoils sharply.

“I’m not _him,_ ” Magnus says, and beneath the snarl, it still sounds pathetic. “Do not for one fucking second think that this is the same thing.”

At this Pickles stands up, shakily, struggling to think his way out of the fog. His luck in these situations tends to run about three-to-one – more often than not, he’s able to give Magnus whatever it is he needs: someone to fight with for an hour, someone to fuck, or someone to just watch a movie and pretend like everything’s normal while Mags cries his eyes out for no discernable particular reason. But with the impediment of his current mental state, Pickles is having trouble trying to work his way through this one. It’s not like Magnus to act _jealous_ – possessive sometimes, but not like, actually jealous of something that happened like, twelve fucking _years_ ago.

Magnus’ hair has fallen over his face, and Pickles tilts his own head to get a better look at Magnus’ eyes.

“Hey Mags? I’m sorry, but – I’m pretty fuckin’ high. You’re gonna have to help me out on this one.” Tentatively, he reaches out to push Magnus’ hair out of the way, but Magnus glares at him.

“You really give a big fuckin’ shit about me, huh?” he says, and Pickles withdraws his hand as though stung. In the back of Magnus’ mind, a tired voice implores him to _stop just fucking stop this shit already,_ but Magnus knows that there’s no stopping destiny, that things are going to be what they’re going to be, and he feels his stomach lurch, like he’s just stepped from solid ground into thin air. “Is that your thing, Pickles – giving a big fucking shit about people, so that when it comes time to leave them in the dust, you can convince yourself that at least you _tried, _– that you really fucking _care?_ ”__

__Pickles stares at him, bewilderment in his bloodshot eyes, but Magnus forges onward: “Newsflash, man – I’m _not_ Tony Fucking Thunderbottom, and I can see right through you, and I don’t give a _shit_ how hard you try. You wanna help me so fucking bad? Just fucking play your fucking drums, and get out of my apartment.”_ _

__There’s this moment that Magnus has been hunting for, and now it arrives – Pickles taking this first step back from him, Pickles looking truly _hurt_ for a few seconds before his features set once again into that mask of pretty indifference. There will be relapses between them – Magnus knows that Pickles has a hard time breaking any habit, and even now he looks forward to them, like playing with a wound in anticipation of the pain. And when it comes time for them to part ways – which it will, which Magnus has always known it will – Magnus will take comfort in knowing that it began in this moment, that he saw it beginning, that he was the one who made the first incision._ _

__Right now, though, he feels a pang of simple pity, something bordering on but not quite venturing into remorse, as he watches Pickles struggle with his fly, then stumble towards his shoes and slip his feet into them, not bothering with the laces, muttering, “Yeah okee – I’ll go, I’ll go.”_ _

__He pats down his thighs, feeling for his keys, and when he finds them, he gives them a shake. Outside, something wooden rends and snaps. He opens the door, then turns and says with resignation, “Ya know, dood – I wish ya youldn’t of gone down on me.”_ _

__*_ _

__

__**10 years later…** _ _

__“We’re not like – you don’t think we’re overreacting, do ya?”_ _

__Pickles avoids looking at Nathan, keeps his eyes fixed somewhere in the night sky above the passenger-side window of the Dethvan. In the back seat, Toki sleeps, sandwiched between Murderface and Skwisgaar still clutching the bloodied remains of his snow-globe. Nathan frowns as he watches the three of them in the rearview mirror._ _

__“No way,” he says. “Magnus is a fucking whack-job.”_ _

__Pickles knows this. He knows this more intimately than Nathan, but he bites his tongue, because _he’s_ not the one with a six-inch scar to show for it. Still, he can’t stifle a cringe, and throws Nathan a sidelong glance._ _

__“Don’t fucking look at me like that,” Nathan says with a sigh. “I know you guys were like, _close_ or whatever, but you really want _Toki_ hanging around with that fucking psycho?”_ _

__Pickles looks over his shoulder at Toki’s sleeping face – mouth open, innocent in that evil way of his. “No,” he replies. “But Mags isn’t… he’s not a _psycho._ ”_ _

__Nathan snorts. “Remember that time during Hurricane Opal? When he threw a fuckin’ fit and kicked you out of his house? We couldn’t find you for a fucking week. I thought you were fucking dead.”_ _

__There are so many things that Pickles has never told Nathan about that night – he’s never mentioned his relapse, or the oral, or the jade-scaled creature that came to his rescue after his bike hydroplaned into a drainage ditch. He’s definitely never mentioned the way Magnus asked for his forgiveness, two months later, in his own Magnus way, by curling up beside him on Nathan’s couch, after everyone else had gone to bed._ _

__“I dunno, man,” Pickles says with a shrug. “It was complicated.”_ _


End file.
